As Team USA goes for gold, the medal count for the Paris Olympic Games is on the rise. While you're catching up on all the 2024 gold-medal glory and silver- and bronze-medal standings, see which countries top the podium with the CBS News medal count tracker below, which is updated hourly.
In addition to the medals, which are unique to each Olympic Games, some winners will get additional awards from their home nations. Cash prizes, cows or even apartments are some of the rewards medal winners in some sports or from certain countries will enjoy.
The 2020 Olympic Games, held in Tokyo in 2021 after a COVID-related delay, were a much more sober affair than most Games due to to the coronavirus pandemic. There, the U.S. narrowly edged out China for most gold medals, 39 to 38, but remained comfortably ahead in overall medals, with American athletes taking home 113 medals to second-place China's 89.
In the 2022 Winter Games, held in Beijing, the U.S. was third in both the gold-medal count and overall medals, with nine golds and 25 overall. Norway topped the count with 16 golds and 37 total medals, followed by Germany in both gold medals, with 12, and overall medals, with 27. Host nation China tied the U.S. in the number of gold medals, but trailed in the total medal count, with 15.
According to the Olympic Foundation for Culture and Heritage, the U.S. leds the all-time medal count going into the Paris Games with a total of 2,975 Olympic medals, followed by the now-defunct Soviet Union, with 1,204 medals, and Germany, with 1,058 medals.
And, as hoped, the U.S. added to its medal haul at the 2024 Games, topping 3,000 total medals within the first week of competition. The American team is helped by the sheer number of competitors representing Team USA at the Paris Games: 594 athletes, of the about 10,500 athletes competing. Four countries in this year's games have only one athlete taking a shot at medal glory: Belize, Liechtenstein, Nauru and Somalia.
And since Russia was banned for this year's games, any medals garnered by its few athletes competing as individual neutral athletes won't be tallied as part of the country's overall haul.
The U.S. will also hope to keep its ranking as the nation with the most gold medals: a total of 1,179 ahead of the Paris Games, according to the Olympic Foundation. Following is the Soviet Union, with 473 gold medals. Germany takes third, with 342 gold medals.
The U.S. notched its first gold medal of the Games with a gold in the men's 4x100 freestyle relay.
